Drew Brees' momma isn't feeling much love: "I think the major point here is that my mother is using me in a campaign, and I've made it known many times I don't want to be involved." That's harsh, dude. Harsh.
* 'Cause, like, no Chunky Soup ads.
Oh, my God. I haven't picked up Sandman in years, probably since first publication, actually. I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman, but have had a sort of odd relationship with his writing. Let's put it this way...I own Black Orchid
So, I've been reading Gaiman since the dark ages. I've read him in a wide variety of formats and media - comics, short stories, novels. And now it's time to go back.
Like I said, I owned BO, but I didn't own any Sandman. My gf from college had the big double crush on Dream and his big sister Death, so she owned those. I just read her copies...liked them well enough, but wasn't completely hooked. Now, this is practically blasphemy. One reads Sandman and falls in love immediately. That's the way it's supposed to work for all geeks. Worked that way for Wesley Crusher, should have worked that way for me. But it didn't.
Instead, over the last ten years or so, Neil Gaiman the fantasist has been worming his way into my brain. Each book, better than the last. I now read his blog religiously (unlike reading religion bloggously) and have been patiently waiting all year for Absolute Sandman. It's strange. Something I liked a bit in the '80s, by an author I grew to love in the '00s(3), that I've been aching to reread for the better part of a year. Every time I'd go to Nerd-a-rama, I'd spot the various Sandman TPs and contemplate buying them...but I wanted the recolored pages! I wanted the HUGE format! I wanted the leather binding and the character sketches and the script pages and the...artifact(4) I'm not patient. I'm shocked I made it.
What's worse? I didn't pre-order and get it the day it was available. I'm not completely sure how I managed to keep my Veruca Salt-y self contained.
It came on Friday. Friday was a crappy day. I left work early (that's not what made it crappy, obviously) with a sore knee. It hurt like a mofo. That meant no tennis Friday night, no tennis Saturday, and who knew beyond that. I had some GI distress in the afternoon - I guess my gut didn't really want the Double-Double I picked up at In-N-Out on my way home. So when UPS came knocking, I just didn't care.
Better a few hours later, it was time to hang with the wife. Then it was time for BSG. Finally, I cracked open the book. And kept reading. And kept reading.
Did I really only sort-of like this back in college? Was I insane? It's all here - everything that makes Gaiman, Gaiman. The man can create mythology from whole cloth. While the crossover stories with the DCU are a little labored - less so with the Constantine than the Dr. Destiny/Arkham story - his storytelling is otherwise pitch perfect. Issues where Dream is central but nearly unseen still flow with the power of Morpheus. When Death appears, well, yah I've got a crush on her.
If you don't appreciate comics, it's either this or Watchmen
1 Of course I knew it was a Gaiman at the time, and probably remembered so in some recess of my mind, but associating the comics guy with the literary fantasist took some effort.
2 What's with all the Amazon links?!? Well, I figure if I'm going to mention the books (all of which I own and love) I might as well provide links to them. And if I'm going to that effort, as well as trying to get my three or four regular readers excited/intrigued enough to read these books, I should try to make money off their susceptibility to peer pressure.
3 I'm amenable to calling this decade either the "aughts" or the "naughts". While the former has its merits, I prefer the parodic attributes of the latter. This is truly the decade in which we've accomplished naught as a race. And, it looks like "naughty", so it's got that going for it.
4 I'm no longer a collector, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten what that feels like (or sold any of my Ellison first editions.) For me, there's something very mystical about putting your signed, numbered, limited edition book back into its slipcase...the book you won't ever read because you might rub the dustjacket or smudge a page. It's honestly not healthy. Absolute Sandman isn't that rare, but it still has the feel of a limited edition.
I tend to read much more fiction than non. Hmm. How then to explain me? Ah, wait. Sociopaths can still exhibit empathy...it's sympathy we lack!
(I understand your pain, I just don't care.)
"Great" piece in Forbes(?!?) touting the myriad(1) benefits of sex. Here, just look at the list of paragraph heads:
Reduced risk of heart disease: In a 2001 follow-on to the Queens University study mentioned above, researchers focused on cardiovascular health. Their finding? That by having sex three or more times a week, men reduced their risk of heart attack or stroke by half. In reporting these results, the co-author of the study, Shah Ebrahim, Ph.D., displayed the well-loved British gift for understatement: "The relationship found between frequency of sexual intercourse and mortality is of considerable public interest."I've specifically called out his paragraph because of the bad science(3). While Dr. Ebrahim didn't specifically state that there was causality, I believe it is implied. As is so often the case, there is causality, but it is inverted.
Oh yeah, t'ain't nothin' hotter than uncovered meat.
Australia's most senior Muslim cleric has prompted an uproar by saying that some women are attracting sexual assault by the way they dress.Really, does anyone find this sentiment shocking? This is the religion that spawned shari'ah.
Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali said women who did not wear a hijab (head dress) were like "uncovered meat".
A pregnancy as a result of rape first of all counts as evidence of adultery committed by the woman. The rape victim then has to prove that she really was raped. In case the man - which is very likely - denies that he has raped the woman, the woman has to name four male witnesses to prove the rape. In case the woman does not find these four male witnesses - which again is very likely - she will be charged with slander.
For the crime of slander, shari'ah prescribes a punishment of 80 lashes. On top of that, the woman will be charged with adultery, and is thus threatened with the death penalty, if she is married. In case, she is unmarried, the "adultery" counts as immoral behaviour and is punished with 100 lashes. This is at least what the criminal code of January 2000 of the Nigerian state Zamfara says.
Alex P. Keaton, Democrat.
Fox's adverts have attracted criticism, with conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh claiming he was either "off his medication or acting" in the 30-second clip.
Well, Rush certainly knows what it's like to be "off his medication". Though in his case, I believe it means sending out the maid to hook him up with a dealer.
I don't believe stem cells are the panacea some think they are, but are certainly an exciting and promising avenue for research. What's clear is that we'll never know whether they're a dead-end or a great source of treatments until we do the science. That means opening up new cell lines, funding research, and publishing the results. It does not mean saying Jebus told us not to.
I'm a big fan of the old Texas Bully. He comes right after FDR in my book.
When stupid people start gnashing their teeth over the death of JFK, I usually tell them to shut their pieholes and point out just how shitty a President he was. I tell them to shove their "he would have gotten us out of Vietnam" crap back up their asses and remind them that he continued to send men and materiel to SE Asia until he was gunned down. Also, I'd like to think that these words, from a Sept. 2, 1963 interview with Walter Cronkite, would disabuse people of that notion: "I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a mistake. That would be a great mistake."
Kennedy was a charismatic Harvard grad with a great pedigree. As a junior Senator he was unremarkable. He was his day's Sen. Barack Obama.
So now that Mr. Charisma 2.0 announces that he's considering the possibility of running in 2008 (coy language intentional,) where o where is my LBJ? Where is the Democrat who can get things done? Where is the Democrat who can step up and do the work that Barack clearly won't or can't. Where is the Democrat who can fill the void on the ticket (the void being Barack himself?) Where is the Democrat who can give us a modern-day Great Society when Barack falters?
I wish I could answer, but there is no heir to Johnson, either in the Senate or the House. Our Democrats are spineless creatures who've forgotten how to politic. We may win this mid-term (though not by much, I'd wager) and we may win in '08; however, with no long-term leaders in the party, I fear for its future.
Very small hubbub about last week's hypocrisy alert on Sara Evans and Tom DeLay. My buddy Brian argued that it was wrong for me to find fault with Sara for her husband's flaws. I disagreed, for reasons I stated in comments. Still, I was standing on pretty shaky ground, picking on poor, sweet, innocent Sara.
Poor, sweet, innocent, Sara who allegedly "filed for divorce the day after [her husband] discovered she was having an affair." That's not all Craig Schelske alleges in his answer to Sara's petition for divorce.
Schelske, 43, also says his wife's interest in her "marital roles and responsibilities" declined and she "neglected" their three children after she began appearing on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."
Now, I have no way of knowing if Sara's a skank, Craig's a lying sack of shit, or if both are true statements (though I certainly have an opinion which should be obvious.) All I do know is I do love watching those Values Folk eat their own young.
Poor little guy. Musta realized he can't bully anyone into friendship, and now he's sorry.
Mixed messages are emerging from North Korea about whether its leader, Kim Jong Il, intends to stage another nuclear test.
Confusion began Friday with a report from South Korea's Yonhap news agency. The report said Kim regrets staging a nuclear test on October 9 and that he is not planning another.
"His country had no plan to conduct an additional nuclear test" the story indicated, opening up the possibility of a more conciliatory stand by Pyongyang on the nuclear issue.
Yonhap attributed the information to an informed diplomatic source in Beijing, China. The news agency said Kim passed along the promise during a meeting with a Chinese envoy.
In this interview with Matt Fraction, the writer of Casanova, there's this unexpected little political exchange. From the oddest sources...
MP: I recently saw a political commentator saying that Americans love Jack Bauer on 24, and that's the best mandate for torture you could hope for. Casting a broad eye over the pop-culture landscape… what mandate do you think it is actually bestowing?
MF: Well, okay, first, that's Laura Ingraham you're talking about, and calling her a political commentator is like calling Shamu a performance artist. This is a woman so virulently homophobic in her college days that, because she made it a matter of her personal policy to out closeted students, she was terrified of eating in restaurants, because she was convinced that gay waiters would give her spoon AIDS and then she would get AIDS and die because the gay waiters all have AIDS and all conspired to kill her. And with a beginning that auspicious, everything else is suspect, yeah?
MP: First of all: let's not say anything about Shamu we can't take back, okay? And second: gay waiters and spoon AIDS?
MF: Swear to god. Google the cunt, you'll see I'm not making it up.
I mean-- follow her logic. We gave Silence of the Lambs like five Oscars-- was that a mandate for cannibalism? The top-grossing movie week-before-last was Jackass 2-- was that a mandate for horse-semen consumption and eyeball leeches? Also: Fox News political commentator refers to Fox Entertainment program? Collusion? Nooooo.
Here's a nice summary from the Guardian of some recent research by Joseph Hibbeln at the NIH, and some other past studies, on the effect of dietary changes - specifically omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies - on violent and anti-social behavior.
Over the last century most western countries have undergone a dramatic shift in the composition of their diets in which the omega-3 fatty acids that are essential to the brain have been flooded out by competing omega-6 fatty acids, mainly from industrial oils such as soya, corn, and sunflower. In the US, for example, soya oil accounted for only 0.02% of all calories available in 1909, but by 2000 it accounted for 20%. Americans have gone from eating a fraction of an ounce of soya oil a year to downing 25lbs (11.3kg) per person per year in that period. In the UK, omega-6 fats from oils such as soya, corn, and sunflower accounted for 1% of energy supply in the early 1960s, but by 2000 they were nearly 5%. These omega-6 fatty acids come mainly from industrial frying for takeaways, ready meals and snack foods such as crisps, chips, biscuits, ice-creams and from margarine. Alcohol, meanwhile, depletes omega-3s from the brain.
Suns vs. Kings and hoo baby was it a...sleeper. There's really nothing to expect from these pre-season games, but a little excitement wouldn't totally suck. Tonight, all the thrills came from Shawn Marion (no surprise) and the flagrant throwdown of Brad Miller by Raja "The Clothesline" Bell. No brawls, though.
The highlights of the evening for me:
The Kings still seem to be stuck without enough of an outside threat to spread the floor, so there was very little high post play. Sucks to watch Brad Miller have to move out of the high post where he's so effective. There were a few well executed back cuts, but those were mostly against Barbosa, and it's not like he's fully aware when he's on the court. I expect the Kings will improve a bit as they get used to Musselman and gel as a unit. I'd guess they'll finish between fourth and seventh in the west, barring serious injuries. On the high side if KMart plays well and Francisco Garcia looks as sharp as he did for stretches tonight.
As for the Suns, they look like anywhere from third to last, all depending on the durability of Nash.
1 Can y'all tell I don't like JJ? I'm not clear why the Suns didn't try to find another long, lanky gunner in the off-season. Although, it does make me wonder...in the lockerroom, do you think he now goes up to Raja and says "[y]ou come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don't come into the [US Airways Arena] playing that stuff. You're across the ocean over there. You're across the city." Just curious.
2 Purple.
3 He's got to be the worst dressed gay man I've ever seen. At least we're convinced she's his beard.
Sen. John McCain (R/S-rA/SP-AZ)* won't do it. He just wants to get my hopes up.
McCain, on a visit to Iowa to campaign for Republican congressional candidates, was asked his reaction to a potential Democratic takeover of the Senate in the November 7 elections.
"I think I'd just commit suicide," McCain told reporters, to accompanying laughter from Republicans standing with him. "I don't want to face that eventuality because I don't think it's going to happen."
Sting grows weary of your "rock music". "Rock music has come to a standstill, it's not going forward anymore, it only bores me."
Of course, Gordon taking up the lute should come as no surprise. As far back as '99 he'd recognized the not-too-subtle shift he'd undergone:
I know the idea of me being cool doesn't seem to make sense (it didn't to me at first, either), but just listen to those albums. Even Synchronicity isn't bad, and I didn't start really laming out until "(Don't Stand So) Close To Me '86." Go figure, I guess.*
*Uh, yah. I know it's the Onion. The best parody should be nearly indistinguishable from reality.
Either you appreciate Jim Osterberg or you don't. If you don't, I can't help you with this. The Smoking Gun - through cleverness, deception, intrigue, muckraking, and probably asking nicely - has obtained the rider for Stooges concerts. I'll let it speak for itself:
The next page contains the information you require.
Bear with me. Not a real bear, of course.
By the way, our guitar roadie, Chris, assures me that the panda is not of the genus "Bear", but is actually a part of the "Pig" family. Could this possibly be true? And if not, why would he risk telling me, so that I can tell the whole world his half-baked theory? Unbelievable.
